graduation

Finally! I have a post. And, I have to tell you, 22 years ago when I graduated from Dover, Ohio population 12,000 we had commencement at 2 pm on the football field .... rain or shine. Well, gone are the days of yesteryear and let me prepare all of you for what is about to come in your near future when your oldest child graduates-> it is a 3 week long graduation! There's graduation festivities with your church, there's festivities for every organization that your child was involved with (chorus, drama, football, basketball - EVERYTHING!) There's a scholarship commencement during the school day where all scholarships are announced and colleges declared. And, then this is a new one for me; Baccalaureate commencement. And, finally graduation! It's exhausting.

So, not only are the festivities exhausting, although worth it for the graduate who has worked their tail off for 4 years, but it's emotionally exhausting. Each ceremony is a reminder that your child has reached their first huge milestone in life and in most cases will be moving out from under your rooftop in 3-4 months. The videos they play at all the ceremonies rip your heart out because you can see how fast time has moved. Gone is the little girl in baby fine pigtails and pink tutu. Now, I am looking at a beautiful Christian woman who is going to college 9 hours away. I'm going to miss that phone call when she would ask if she could come over for dinner or could she just pop in; even if her Dad wasn't home. Yep, I'm the stepmom and sometimes I wish I had another name because stepmom always conjures up such negative feelings. Hallie & I have a sweet relationship and I know she's not leaving just growing up, but sometimes you just long to go back in time. I held a friend's 1 year old baby and he reminds me so much of my own son and I'm proud of the man Christian is becoming, but I'd like to go back one more time and rock him to sleep in my arms and carry him to bed; at 165 lbs. I can't do that anymore!

So, don't rush this time and look forward to the future when they start kindergarten and think that you'll get to do all the things you don't have time for. Because the time is going to come when you're picking out colleges and watching your baby receive their diploma. And, those tears are going to come...

Shots!!!!

How could I have overlooked the dreaded shots. I knew the day was coming and didn't think it would be that bad; did I mention that I haven't had shots since I don't remember when.... I had one shot when I was pregnant with Christian, IV's when I went into labor and then epidurals. But, really no shots in a LOOOOONG time! I don't even remember when I had my last tetanus shot. So, off we go to BRentwood Baptist Church and get in this massive line of people also going on mission trips and needing shots. The service providing the shots was an outreach clinic and mostly retired. They were very nice, but I'm wondering if I got the right shots?! Two hours later we got our shots; I got 5 and the MMR really hurt and Hallie got 4. The nurses said that men and teenage girls kind of freak out about the shots; I assured them that after childbirth I would be fine and I was maybe a little queesy, but ok. Hallie, on the other hand, not so well. Just a couple minutes after her shots she was sitting down with her head between her knees and saying she didn't feel well. The nurses immediately got her to lay down and they gave her a sucker. Within about 10 minutes she was fine, but I was feeling a little nervous for her. Sophie and Christian were also with us and Christian decided that mission trips were not his calling from God; he was sure that God was calling him for something else local!

Anyway, my arms are sore and that's my excuse for not running this week. I've set a goal to run a 5K and I can only run 1 mile and then that's all I can push myself to do. I wish I liked to run, but it's just not my thing. I'll try to get at it tomorrow. I'll hate it if I don't reach my goal. It's just so easy to find an excuse!

Hello Dolly!

This weekend was Hallie's performance in, "Hello Dolly!" She's Dolly and she is amazing! I'm not just saying that because she's my step-daughter, but because she's got some pipes and some fabulous talent. Last night was the opening night and the high school theater was packed and she got a standing ovation. Of course, I was brought to tears along with Jay and Hallie's mom and everyone else that was there supporting her. She has worked so hard; not just for the singing, but for the choreography and the speaking part. She was phenomenal. I'm convinced she's going to be on Broadway! I don't know how she could avoid it. The costumes were amazing; much better than what we had in our old costume wardrobe at my high school and the set and everything was so professional and well done. I couldn't be more proud of Hallie than I am right now. She's amazing and I'm so glad that she allows me to be part of her life. And, if any of you are interested there's one more show Sunday from 2-4 at the David Lipscomb high school theater; you will not be disappointed!

Love your neighbor

I have to share what I watched out my window this morning. Sophie now goes to the bus stop on her own, but I continue to watch her out my window until the bus comes and picks her up. This morning was a little chilly, so she wore her heavier sweatshirt with a long sleeve tshirt underneath. Chloe came to the bus stop without a coat and I saw Sophie try to crowd around her to warm her up. And, it was just a few moments later that Sophie took her coat off and put it on Chloe. Sophie looked back at our house; I'm sure she was waiting to see the door open and me to tell her to put her coat back on and that was my initial reaction, but then I thought "no." God tells us in Luke10:27 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself. Sophie was demonstrating what God wants all of us to do and I wasn't going to take away from that. Initially, I wanted to keep her from getting sick or being cold herself, but what she did was far more important than catching a cold.

I'm feeling CREATIVE

bonus room- ALL this in my little craft room

craft room -painted, clean and still cluttered; but manageable!

I am soooo excited! Many of you know we've been living in our house about a year and a half and I have a craft room that is under the eaves of the house. I collect and start a lot of crafts, so I have a ton of stuff! I love fabric and I have books & a steamer and a clothes rack and an iron body form; it's a lot. Unfortunately, when we moved in this room had not been used by the previous owners except for storage and the walls were builder white and dirty. I moved in and piled my stuff. Well, since my sewing machine has been out of commision this week I decided to paint my craft room and tidy things up a bit. I painted two walls apple green and two walls blue and then the small ceiling strip is yellow. It turned out so cute and now I'm feeling really creative; watch out! I had to move everything out of my room to paint it and I realized how much stuff I really have. I could supply crafts for my entire brownie troop for years! I hate to throw anything away because I never know when I might need it and I might want to do a new craft and I'd hate to go back out and buy the stuff again. So, I keep it. Anyway, I moved everything out of my craft room and into our bonus room and it totally filled it up. I never knew I could get so much stuff in such a little space! My craft room looks great; it's still cluttered, but I can't get rid of anything else. My walls are clean and I feel very creative; I need my sewing machine! I've got 4 orders to complete for next week and am going a little crazy waiting for my sewing machine. Here are the pics of my bonus room with all my stuff and my craft room after it's done.

the store is finally open!

Well, if any of you have gone on to my store I'm sure you noticed that it was a little bare and that was totally my fault! You see, because I've been busy sewing shirts & purses, making necklaces & earrings for the store that are carrying my things I haven't been keeping up with my online store. It's always on my list to do, but my list is longer than my week! And, this week was going to be no different than all my other weeks of things to do, but I was forced to get MOST of the things on my list done other than sewing. MY MACHINE BROKE and is in the sewing machine garage somewhere?! It's really been an adjustment not to be able to sew, but I've been able to exercise this week (went for a walk and tae kwon do), got some patterns cut for when I can sew and most importantly added some things to my online store! I'm even thinking of going to Silo Studios Thursday - to get more inspiration! My friend, Ondrea, gave me a great idea of hair clips and I've been making those a couple weeks (just to add to the purses, shirts, earrings, & necklaces) and then she gave me another great idea that I've been working on, too. I need to find somewhere that I can get inexpensive sheet metal in small sizes! Ondrea is turning into my marketing manager.

I am definitely going to do a better job of posting my things for sale on my online store. I met with someone last week who is going to help me out and sew for me in her spare time. I'm really excited about this; hope it works out!

thanks!

cat in the hat

This week was Dr. Seuss week and our school celebrated daily. Sophie chose to dress as Cat in the Hat. She looks so cute and I love what I'm able to do with my new editing software!